Month November 2014

Lenny Joseph has worked for three Bergen County-based employers in the past eight months. His work for the first two were short-term assignments, but the 34-year-old former auditor sees a future at his latest gig.

“I am currently up for a permanent placement fairly soon in management … if it all works out,” he said.

Joseph is a temporary worker, known more commonly as a “temp.” He is one of many you’ll find at businesses across the Garden State, where the market for full-time employment hasn’t recovered since the Great Recession, but the demand for temps is climbing to new heights.

For Lubna Ismail, president of a Cliffside Park home health aide business, time is crucial. If she can’t set up potential recruits with a client right away, they might sign on with someone else.

“When you’re ready to hire, sometimes they’ve already taken a position with another agency,” said Ismail, a Leonia resident who has been running a Right at Home franchise for three years. “It’s like, who can get to them first?”

Home health aides work with the elderly and the disabled, assisting them with basic tasks like bathing and dressing and performing limited clinical duties, including checking vital signs. In New Jersey and across the country, an aging population means that home health aides are in greater demand than ever.